The Transboundariness Approach and Prioritization of Transboundary Aquifers between Mexico and Texas

Transboundarines refers to a new approach that identifies and measures the priorization of transboundary aquifers using criteria that expands its physical boundaries. This approach redefines the aquifer value considering its socio-economic and political conditions adding additional variables to the transboundary context. Transboundariness is applied to the hydrogeological units/aquifers between Mexico and Texas obtaining the following results. First, the criteria used to measure it and corresponding scores, agree with the current level of attention to transboundary aquifers/hydrogeological units in the region, providing a quantifiable metric system that could be tested with other transboundary aquifers in the world. Second, this approach provides a holistic and integrative perspective for transboundary aquifer assessment and priorization scheme, offering transboundary management alternatives that consider contextual dimensions and time scales in addition to the physical aquifer conditions. Third, this prioritization exercise expands the criteria currently used to prioritize transboundary aquifers (groundwater dependency and contamination vulnerability) into a more identifiable regime of groundwater links to the community as a whole. Finally, results reflect not only the reality in which the transboundary aquifers between Mexico and United States in Texas are being used (or neglected), at which scale and rate; but also, the socio-political reality of the populations that depend on these vital resources for current and future development. Future research should encourage the analysis of sustainable groundwater scenarios for the high-priority aquifers as well as the development of transboundary governance schemes, to move toward managing transboundary aquifers in a truly binational way.